Tuesday, August 23, 2011

I considered the war against Moammar Qaddafi — admittedly a monster — to be ill-conceived, poorly articulated, unnecessarily drawn out, and predicated on the whims of the U.N. and the Arab League rather than on authorization from the U.S. Congress. But the only thing worse than a unwise war is losing an unwise war — and that is what the Obama administration has finally realized.

I don't think they even have a clue what a Pandora's Box they have opened.

What Libya will look like in a year, no one knows.

I've got a pretty good idea, and it is not good.

As for outcomes, there are many scenarios, but these two may be the most likely: either a sort of on-again-off-again chaos until a military-backed clique or strongman emerges and the same old cycle resumes, or some sort of constitutional system in a decidedly Islamic context, analogous to the Turkish model. In the latter case, we could expect the new state’s foreign policy to be anti-Western, friendly to China and Russia, virulently and actively anti-Israel, and more accommodating with Iran and its subsidized terrorist appendages. Given Western insolvency, public weariness with the Middle East, the announced draw-downs in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the president’s leading-from-behind diplomacy, I think the region will do pretty much what it wants without any worry whatsoever about U.S. feelings or interests.

I believe it will be the latter, an Islamic state ruled by Sharia Law that will respond favorably to an effort in the very near future to reform the Islamic Caliphate. But they will probably just join with Egypt first in the Ezekiel attack on Israel that is about to happen.

On our end, it would seem wise to keep our defenses strong and ready, and finally start exploiting our own sizable fossil-fuel reserves (especially oil and gas offshore) in the Gulf, the West, and Alaska.

I could not agree with you more. Not only does that make sense from an Energy Policy perspective, it does from a Jobs perspective as well.